Clear as the night sky
by Settely
Summary: Erik has always been a sad, broken man who hoped for more than he could ever have.
1. Chapter 1: Dreaming

_**Nemo est casu bonus**_

_Nobody is good by chance _(Seneka)

Charles' lips are as red as wine. It is funny to see him so relaxed, sprawled naked on silken covers. The room is dark, a solitary lamp giving only so much light as not to fall over any pieces of furniture. A blush creeps its way up the milky skin of his throat as fine outlines of a collarbone and cheekbones are underlined with a shadow or two.

There is nervousness and some kind of sadness hidden behind Charles' inviting smile but what shines out the most is acceptance. Raw acceptance of Erik as a person, as a mutant, as a...

Man. Man who just fell in love with another man.

It is hard to believe at first, to be honest. He remembers the cryptic meaning of pink triangles pressed here and there on the clothing of people he had to dispose of, had to forget the disfigured faces of, had to remember to breathe after touching with his hands ready to spit out his own protruding bones. The shame when he saw men cry in each other's shoulders when the walls of barbed wire fell, the jostling all around him. The silence.

"I haven't dared to hope for as much." Erik props himself at the doorframe, his voice strained.

"Really, my friend." Charles blinks lazily back at him, combing an elegant hand through his tousled hair. His lips quiver, their redness only seeming to grow. "You ought to have more faith from now on."

"Why?" Is all Erik utters back, closing the door carefully. His gaze softens and his arms uncross as he comes closer, deciding to sit in the feet of the bed. "I thought, I..."

Charles is looking at him with an unwavering gaze, his eyes seeming to mist over in thought for a moment. "You were never a stranger to me, Erik. You ought to have known that already." He starts to laugh then, the sound eerily resonating within the suddenly cold room. "Look at what you have done to me!" Charles whizzes then, his whole body convulsing in a sob. "_Look at me!_" His voice breaks as he throws the covers away, the movement causing a nearby vase to fall and shatter into million pieces on the floor.

His legs… There are no legs, nothing that could actually resemble them. There are naked bones there, twisted and pale, with shreds of muscles attached here and there, greenish swollen veins hanging onto them like matted poison ivy. His hips are swollen, their joints as if broken, rendering the lower half of his body completely useless.

Erik looks on shocked, frozen in place, unable either to move, or tear his eyes away. "I didn't do it." He whispers, feeling bile rise high in his throat. "I did- I did not do it." World falls into smudges as Erik tries to move away, tries to grasp at the frame of the bed. It almost feels as if he was drowning. He can't breathe deep enough to think clearly. "No, no-, Charles, _NO_, I did not-"

Charles' face is blank. "Wer würde dich eingeintlich lieben?" His words sound hysterical but his eyes are closed as he lies down on the bed. His face contorts, an ugly grimace twisting his features, his next words spat viciously, "RAUS, du dumme jüdisches Kind, _raus_, sage ich!"

"Charles." Erik rasps, clutching his own fingers till they feel ready to snap him out of the sudden stupor. "Char-"

"MAMA!"

"Du bist ein Jude, was machst du hier?"

"Cicho, nie płacz, nie płacz, _ciiii_-"

"Komme raus. Komme raus diese Sekunde, Jude."

**"MAMA!"**

"Ihr habt dafür gearbeitet gehabt- "

_"TATO!"_

"Nur ohne euch hätte Deutschland eine Zukunft!"

"Nie, nie-, Nie, proszę nie..."

"Schmutzige Schweine wollen Alles nur für sich selbst haben."

**"TATO!**_**MAMO!"**_

"**RAUS**!"

"_No,_we do _not_, my friend."

His head is pounding when he wakes up.


	2. Chapter 2: Awake

"Nie!" Erik whispers, staring at the ceiling with unblinking eyes. The lamp in the middle of it looks like a broken candelabra, buzzing with the noise of a cheap electric bulb inside. "Nie." He repeats louder, nursing the bottle closer to his lips, spilling some of the vodka down the front of his shirt.

The world spins when he tries to get up, his head splitting itself in two. A sudden wave of nausea makes him bring a hand across his lips reflexively, nostrils flaring.

He sees her standing by the window then, her back almost fluorescent. Her skin is pinkish and freckled, as if glowing with an inner light. Her hair is long, dark locks spilling down one of the shoulders, caressing the outline of her clothed breast. Her face is obscured from the view however, hidden in the shadow of a nearby curtain.

"Mamo." He rasps, extending a hand towards her. His whole arm shakes when he calls out to her, her silhouette unmoving in the distance. "Mamo-" She seems so close and yet so far away, a few steps from the bed, a few hundred miles to cross.

Her perfume is strong, going in waves off of her as her stilettos click on the wooden panels, her hips moving like a pendulum as she nears his line of sight. "You've had another nightmare." Her eyes shimmer when the dark waves dissolve into a flair of red, as the skin loses its rosiness and her body reveals its taunt muscles. "It's me, Mystique."

She sits in the feet of the bed, close enough for Erik to see her fake eyelashes peel off but far enough not to be able to touch.

The room feels stuffy, the air barely moving. Erik drinks till the burning in his throat subdues and his head begins to swim lazily between consciousness and dreaming. The street lanterns cast a pool of dimmed light over the middle of the floor, the rest dark and devoid of life.

He drinks into the sight of her, the delicate afterglow from the window on her skin, the rough touch of her fingertips on his when he hands her the bottle, the movement of her throat as she takes a mouthful of the vodka, the frown as the liquid burns the back of her throat. Her hand hovers over his for a moment before she seems to remember herself and retracts it hastily, putting the alcohol away.

She grasps both of her hands, the edges of her fingers lightning up for a moment to change from their natural blue to a pair of sinewy ones. She looks comically with masculine palms attached to her slender wrists but Erik just stares stunned at the view, something inside of him twisting itself in a knot. "Why would you do this?"  
>She ignores him, looking her new hands over, grimacing at the shape of fingernails, length of each finger, overall shape. Her face contorts itself in thought as the details start to change, as her skin and bones reform themselves, as a wedding band appears on the left one, as moles spring out here and there.<p>

Erik just looks on, the pleasurable feeling of swimming receding, a deep ache taking its place. He looks towards the door where their half-unpacked suitcases still stand, gathering dust. He reaches for the bottle again but before he is able to grab at it properly, a pale hand settles on his wrist. He looks back at the girl before him, her features unreadable in the dark.

"Enough." She says in a steady voice. Her mouth is still moving when Erik stops to listen, when he moves to lie on the bed once again, cursing under breath as his elbow bangs at something. He half expects to hear the noise of breaking porcelain. When nothing but Mystique's voice can be heard, he looks briefly to his right, where an old flower vase used to stand. There is nothing there.

Cautiously, so that nausea does not take the better of him, he looks over the edge of the mattress at the floor, where gleaming dark shards lie among a few padded white lilies.  
>Strange. Last time he saw the vase whole, there was a blooming bouquet in it.<p>

"Just look at you." Mystique's strangled chuckle brings him out of his thoughts as she tugs at his sleeve not to have him roll off the bed. "Great fearsome Magneto drunk till he can barely see." Her hands are sun-kissed now, freckled and childish in both their size and movements.

"Leave me alone-" he means to growl back but she will have none of it. Two pairs of tired, sad eyes meet when they look back at each other. "Leave me." He says once again, looking away.

Mystique, or Raven, or whatever else she would have him call her, says nothing in return as she slips into the corridor.

Once alone, Erik looks at the ceiling again. He can finally smell the faint rottenness of the lilies. There is a dull ache in his side, just beneath his ribs, as he takes a deep swig from the bottle. And then another and another, and another till his vision swims enough not to notice anything but his immediate surroundings. He looks long and carefully at his own hand, battered and sinewy like an old parchment.

He does not go to sleep before the sun comes out fully, blinding, as it rolls its stray rays directly over the bed and his closed eyes.


End file.
